Bath salts blamed in Pennsylvania man's brutal attacks on woman

A Boggs Township man was behind bars Friday after police charged him with a series of brutal assaults on a woman that culminated with three days of alleged bath salts-fueled violence last week.

Pennsylvania State Police at Rockview said Justin D. Hinds, 35, allegedly beat the woman with a crude weapon made by affixing a nail to a heavy flashlight, threw a cell phone at her face, breaking a tooth, and pointed a loaded shotgun at her.

The woman told police the latest round of abuse began June 5 and escalated over the next several days. According to the charging documents, the woman told police Hinds was using bath salts, wasn't sleeping and was increasingly paranoid.

Bath salts are a synthetic stimulant that can result in paranoia, agitation and hallucinations, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The woman was able to escape Hinds' home June 8 and went to police several days later. Troopers wrote in the charging documents that they saw injuries to the woman's head, back, legs, arms and tooth.

Hinds was arraigned Friday before District Judge Thomas Jordan on felony counts of aggravated assault and kidnapping and numerous misdemeanor charges. Hinds was being held in the Centre County Correctional Facility on $500,000 bail. Court documents do not list an attorney for him.

The alleged assault was not the first incident between the two, according to interviews police had with the woman in November and on Tuesday.

Police said they were called in November by a nurse at an out-of-state hospital where the woman went for treatment of injuries consistent with an assault.

The woman told police she was attacked by Hinds at his home in Boggs Township, Centre County. He allegedly choked her, slammed her head against a counter, kicked her in the face and repeatedly punched her in the torso, breaking ribs.

Police received medical records from the hospital in February but were unable to contact the woman. They later learned she returned to Hinds' home in March.

She told police Hinds allegedly started using bath salts again in April or May. The woman said he had not been sleeping leading up to the latest assaults.

On June 5, Hinds forced her to sit in a chair in the corner and told her she wasn't allowed to talk or move. She said he taped a nail to a MagLite flashlight and hit her head and knees when she spoke.

She said Hinds shoved her against a wall later that night, causing a mirror to break and a cut to her back. When she fell to the ground, he took another mirror from a wall and broke it over her back, she told police.

The next day, when the two went to Bellefonte, the woman was able to call for an ambulance from a convenience store while Hinds was inside another business.

But when Bellefonte police arrived, she told them she called the ambulance because she injured her knee moving objects. The woman later told state police she was afraid of what Hinds would do if she told the truth and did not want him to get in trouble.

Instead of seeking treatment, the woman returned home with Hinds. The abuse resumed that night, she told police.

On June 7, Hinds accused her of "setting things up for people to get him," the woman told police. He later took her cell phone and threw it at her face, breaking a tooth, she told police.

The woman said Hinds slapped, kicked and punched the woman over the next several hours. When it got dark, he made her turn out the lights and sit silently in the dark. She said he would scream out the windows, "If you want some, come and get it."

The woman told police Hinds taped a flashlight to a shotgun, pointed it at her and told her he would kill her if she "had anything to do with it."

Hinds is scheduled to be in Centre County court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing on the charges.